The Impossible Climb
Mark Synnott

A Unique Window into the World of Climbing, Alex Honnold's ascent of El Capitan was so much more than a single feat of human endurance. His historic no-rope "free solo" of El Capitan's 3,000 feet of sheer granite is the closing of one chapter of a longer story, the story of a community of people seeking a perfect, choreographed dance with nature: climbers. Mark Synnott places Honnold's achievement alongside the stories of the raggedy culture that emerged decades earlier during Yosemite's Golden Age. Painting an authentic wry portrait of the harlequin tribes of climbers known as the Stonemasters and stone Monkeys, Synnott weaves in his own experiences with crisp wit and insight: tensions burst on the mile-high northwest face of Pakistan's Great Trango Tower; fellow climber Jimmy Chin miraculously persuades an official in the Borneo jungle to allow Honnold's first foreign expedition, led by Synnott, to continue; armed bandits accost the same trio at the foot of a tower in the Chad desert. This adventure to sublime heights in the company of people who dare to master them is both a social history and a philosophical search, culminating in a four-hour climb that would redefine the limits of human potential. Book jacket.